July 2020 – my daily art display

William McTaggart. Part 1. The son of a Scottish crofter.

My featured artist today, William McTaggart, was born in the rural hamlet of Aros, in the parish of Campbeltown, a Scottish town on the Kintyre Peninsula, on October 25^th, 1835. He was born into a family of crofters. He was one of nine children of Dugald and Barbara Brodie McTaggart (née Brolachan). His father was a farm labourer and it was said that young William would fashion models from the clay which was prevalent in the ground around the farm. In 1847 his parents arranged for him to become an apprentice to Doctor Buchanan, an apothecary in Campbeltown. During his apprenticeship he would wile away his spare time sketching and painting, often they would be portraits of the shop’s customers. Doctor Buchanan must have been impressed by his hard work and his love of art as in 1852, he arranged for William to go to Glasgow and gave him a letter of introduction to the established Scottish portrait artist Daniel MacNee.

A Life Study of a Seated Male Model by William McTaggart (c.1850’s)

MacNee was also impressed by William McTaggart and began to give him some lessons in artistic techniques. He advised the young man to go to Edinburgh and seek a formal art education. William took the advice, much to the consternation of his father, and enrolled as a student at the Trustees’ Academy, an establishment which dated back to 1760 and which, in 1907 became the Edinburgh College of Art. William McTaggart spent seven years at this Edinburgh art school and studied under Robert Scott Lauder, the Scottish Historical painter. It was just what young McTaggart needed. Here he had found a sense of enthusiasm towards art rather than a cynicism towards the subject which he had encountered at home. No longer where his artistic aspirations looked upon as being foolish. He was now not alone when it came to his love of art and had the added advantage of having a skilled tutor to guide him. This change of environment acted as a stimulus for his enthusiastic nature. His success at the Academy was down to his artistic talent and his strength of character.

Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857

At the Trustees Academy he won various awards including first prizes for both painting life models and painting antique casts. During his long stay he also attended some of the anatomy classes of John Goodsir at Edinburgh University. In 1857, along with Paul Chalmers, a fellow Trustees’ Academy student who became a well-known portrait painter, William travelled down to Manchester to visit the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition which comprised over 16,000 works split into various categories, such as Pictures by Ancient Masters, Pictures by Modern Masters, British Portraits and Miniatures, Water Colour Drawings, Sketches and Original Drawings (Ancient), Engravings, Illustrations of Photography, Works of Oriental Art, Varied Objects of Oriental Art, and Sculpture. It was a monumental exhibition remains and believed to be the largest art exhibition ever to be held in the with over 16,000 works on display.

In numerous biographies of artists who studied in Paris they often travelled to Brittany during their summer vacations but for aspiring Scottish artists studying in their homeland they would often spend their summer holidays across the Irish Sea in Ireland. Like their French counterparts, whilst enjoying their summer vacation they would paint and try and sell their artwork before returning back home to the new term which had to be paid for. William McTaggart’s initial painting were portraits and in 1855 he had his first painting, a watercolour portrait of two ladies, unveiled at an Edinburgh exhibition, although previously he had some of his works shown at the Royal Hibernian Society.

The Past and the Present, by William McTaggart (c.1860)

One of McTaggart’s early paintings, completed around 1860, was The Past and The Present depicting the cheery purity of young children and was probably influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite painters who favoured this type of subject. McTaggart received the commission for this work from the Glaswegian art collector Robert Craig. The painting depicts a group of five children of varying age playing innocently in the graveyard of the ruined Kilchousland church on a sunny afternoon. They show no fear with regards the area which holds the remains of those who have passed away. The depiction of their innocence negates any thoughts that this is a vanitas painting and yet the title would seem to highlight the transience of life.

After a three-year engagement, William McTaggart married Mary Holmes in Glasgow on June 9^th 1863. They would go on to have six children. He and his young wife went to Fairlie, a picturesque village which backed on to green pastoral hills which surrounded beautiful wooded glens, on the Ayrshire coast a few miles from Largs. From Fairlie the couple went to London on a brief visit about the end of July, when Mrs. McTaggart met some of her husband’s early friends, and they visited the Royal Academy Exhibition. However, for William McTaggart, London was not for him and the couple returned to live in Edinburgh. Soon his family increased and during the following summers he would take his wife and children on family holidays by the sea on the East coast of Scotland, visiting places such as Carnoustie and Broughty Ferry, where he painted many of the local scenes and soon gathered a number of commissions from the local people

Through Wind and Rain by Wiliam McTaggart (1875)

In 1870, McTaggart and his family went on holiday to the small village of Kilkerran, a few miles south of Campbeltown, and close to his birthplace. It was a working holiday as William loved to paint. From that year on, William and his family would return to Kintyre visiting Machrihanish, Tarbert, Carradale or Southend. He was a prolific painter and his output was tremendous. His paintings were much sought after and commanded high prices. It is believed at that time he was probably the best open-air painter in Britain.

The Village, White House by William McTaggart (1875)

In 1875 McTaggart completed his painting The Village, Whitehouse. It was exhibited in the London Royal Academy under the title Twas Autumn and Sunshine arose on the Way. It was one of many McTaggart paintings which depicted the picturesque small village. It was a tiring journey for the artist to get to Whitehouse as he had to go to Campbeltown and then catch the Campbeltown-Tarbert coach and to achieve all this he had to leave his holiday home at 5.a.m. It was the last time he exhibited at the Royal Academy as he reasoned that he preferred to be first in his own country rather than be second in any other.

As a student at the Trustees’ Academy, William McTaggart was awarded several prizes. He also began to exhibit his work at the prestigious Royal Scottish Academy and in 1870 applied to become a full Academician. To achieve this, he had to pass an interview and submit a diploma piece. McTaggart’s diploma piece was his 1869 painting entitled Dora. The painting illustrates a scene from Tennyson’s 1835 poem of the same name. Dora, the heroine of the poem, waits in the field for the old farmer to acknowledge his grandchild beneath a blaze of summer sunshine. Dora’s ploy here is to take off the boy’s sun-hat and put a little chain of wildflowers around his head instead, to make him look appealing (although in the poem itself, she puts the flowers round his hat). The grandfather can be seen approaching in the distance. Fortunately, in the end, the child does bring his grandfather round.

The poem reads:

“…But when the morrow came, she rose and took

The child once more, and sat upon the mound;

And made a little wreath of all the flowers

That grew about, and tied it round his hat

To make him pleasing in her uncle’s eye…”

William McTaggart was made an Academician in 1870. The painting is part of the Scottish National Gallery and is regarded as one of the gems among the Scottish pictures.

Summer Breezes by William McTaggart (1881)

Most of his early works featured figure painting with him concentrating on depictions of children. A fine example of this early work was McTaggart’s 1881 painting entitled Summer Breezes. The painting depicts the two daughters of Sir. Thomas McCall Anderson who was a noted and pioneering dermatologist at the Glasgow Western Infirmary and later Regius Professor of Medicine. The background for the picture was painted from sketches made by McTaggart at Machrihanish in August 1880. His biographer John Craw summed up the painting in his 1917 book William McTaggart R.S.A., V.P.R.S.W., A Biography and an Appreciation. He wrote:

“…Than the last there is, indeed, nothing more exquisite in the fascinating kind of child portraiture he had made peculiarly his own. Here the two little daughters of Sir T. McCall Anderson, playing barefoot upon the sunlit shore, are grouped beside a great rock. One child, dressed in pale blue and pink, leans against the tawny and golden ridge upon which her smaller white-pinafored sister is perched, and their curly heads come together as they look with delight and wonder at a shell held by the other girl. Beside them, but neglected for the new-found treasure, a rough-haired terrier turns his attention seawards, where not far off a cobble at the salmon nets bobs buoyantly upon the waves, which heave divinely blue and free beneath a brilliant summer sky. Delightful as story, the pictorial treatment is no less charming. The design is happy and pervaded by a rare sense of beauty, the handling and drawing easy, graceful, suggestive, the colour lovely on its high-pitched but full harmony, the whole effect remarkable not only for vividness of lighting but for silvery clearness of tone…”

………………to be continued.

Léon Frédéric. Part 2. The Symbolist painter

Having looked at his Realism/Naturalism works in my previous blog, in this, the second of my blogs about the nineteenth century Belgian artist, Léon Frédéric, I want to concentrate on his work as a Symbolist painter.

Léon Frédéric has been designated as a Symbolist painter and yet when I look at all his work only some of it seems to fall into that category, whilst other of his paintings tended towards realism, but today it is all about his Symbolist art. I think probably the best way of starting the discussion is to specify what Symbolism means as far as art is concerned. Symbolism was a late nineteenth century anti-materialist and anti-rationalist movement. It was a type of art which rejected the authentic representation of the natural world, as seen in impressionism, realism, and naturalism, which was spurned in favour of imaginary dream worlds in which we may see strange figures from literature, the bible, and Greek mythology. It was art which focused upon the erotic and mystical with diverse subjects such as love, fear, anguish, death, sexual awakening, and unrequited desire. It was the aim of Symbolist painters to give visual articulation to emotional happenings. Symbolism was an art in which there was an idea that another world lies beyond the world of appearances.

The Greek-born poet, essayist and art critic, Jean Moréas published The Symbolist Manifesto in the French newspaper Le Figaro on September 18th 1886. It described a new literary movement, and it proclaimed the name of Symbolism as not just the fitting terminology for that movement, but one that echoed how imaginative minds manage the work. It was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites in England and Symbolist art became very popular throughout Europe. The leading protagonists in France were Gustave Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes and Odile Redon. In Germany it was the artwork of Franz Stuck and Max Klinger and in Austria at the forefront of Symbolist art was Gustav Klimt and Alfred Kubin and in Frédéric’s homeland Belgium, Fernand Khnopff, James Ensor were the leading exponents of Symbolism art.

Frédéric completed his extraordinary symbolist painting, Studio Interior in 1882, which appears to be a fantasy self-portrait depicting the artist naked with a skeleton on his lap. The latter has been dressed up in undergarments with a long starry veil over them. His palette and brushes are at the lower right, and his clothes – including a top hat – are draped on chairs.

Frédéric’s works from the early 1890’s concentrated almost exclusively on symbolist subjects. His artwork was lauded by his fellow Belgian artist, Fernand Khnopff in The Studio, the Illustrated Magazine of Fine and Applied Art magazine which was published in London. More of Frédéric’s work was talked about in many foreign journals such as the Austrian Ver Sacrum, the official magazine of the Vienna Secession and it was this wide coverage which brought Frédéric and his art to the fore and became internationally recognised. His work was exhibited in Paris, Venice and Munich. Léon Frédéric’s Symbolist artworks were both large and spectacular. One example of this is in the Ohara Museum of Art in Kurashiki, Japan.

All Things Die, But All Will Be Resurrected through God’s Love by Léon Frédéric

It is entitled All Things Die, But All Will Be Resurrected through God’s Love. It is a massive work of art measuring 161 x 1100cms (5ft 3 x 36 feet). It is a polyptych, a painting which is divided into sections, or panels or to be more precise, a heptaptych (or septych) one which is divided into seven panels. It is incredibly detailed and took Frédéric twenty-five years to complete having started it in 1893, it was not completed until 1918. It is a work of great beauty and its potency is overpowering. The multi-depiction is made up of Biblical tales and it reads from left to right.

The three panels on the left tell how God is angry with how he is unhappy at how mankind has been acting and he is sends down fire and brimstone to punish the people. The end result, as depicted, is that the people were burnt by the fires and crushed into rocks and all eventually die.

In the fourth (middle panel) there is a change of mood and we see a depiction of a white dove, which is a symbol of a messenger from God, arriving on the scene bearing good news, that God forgives and through his love, humanity will be revived.

The three panels to the right depict the result of his forgiveness. Happy people congregate under a double rainbow. It is an amazing work with countless figures, each with their own expressions. It was obviously a time-consuming project and highlights the love Frédéric had for this work and his Christian beliefs. Take time to study each panel. Look at all the different expressions on the faces of the people. Look at the backgrounds of each panel. It is amazing what you discover.

One sad note with regards the painting is connected with the centre panel. During the time Frédéric was painting this work, World War I had begun in which he lost his daughter Gabrielle. In the foreground of the middle panel there are five young girls wearing floral garlands on their heads. It is believed that the girl in the centre of this group was a portrait of his daughter who died and to the bottom left of the panel (although illegible in this attached picture) Frédéric has written:

“…a nohe bien ainee fille Gabrielle (To my dear daughter, Gabrielle)…”

and he has added his own signature.

So, what does the painting symbolise? It is thought that Frédéric intention was to depict the foolishness of wars and the sorrow it brings, not just to the victims but their loved ones as seen in the left-hand panels. However, he wants there to be some good for those victims including his daughter to revive in the land of God in the right half of the painting.

The painting was bought by Torajiro Kojima following his visit to Frédéric’s Studio in 1923. He had originally seen the work at an exhibition in Antwerp. Torajiro was a Japanese artist who followed the traditions of the Impressionists. He studied at the University of Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo, and in 1908 went to Paris to continue his studies. In 1909 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium, where he trained in Luminism. From 1920 onwards, after a decade back in Japan, he travelled to Europe several times at the request of Magosaburo Ohara, his patron and a Japanese businessman and philanthropist who founded the Ōhara Art Museum with the intention of filling it with Western art by Emile Claus, Jean-Joseph Delvin, Monet, Matisse, Albert Marquet and sculptures by Rodin, and many others. The museum, which opened in 1929, was the first one in Japan to house a large collection of modern Western art. The polyptych painting by Frédéric was Torajiro Kojima’s last purchase in Europe. It is believed that this seven-panel painting became a determining factor for the width of the Ohara Museum of Art during the time of the design phase.

Les âges de l’ouvrier [The Ages of the Worker] by Léon Frédéric

The Musée d’Orsay has, within its collection, a triptych by Lé Frédéric entitled Les âges de l’ouvrier [The Ages of the Worker], which he completed around 1897. It is a painting packed with crowds of people, all of whom are displaying a multitude of dramatic, yet meaningful gestures.

The left-hand panel depicts the men engaged in heavy labour. The white-haired man with the white apron is almost kneeling on the floor. Is he collecting rubble as behind him stands a young boy with a wicker basket on his back, possibly waiting to haul away the stones? Look at the men in the background helping each other to carry the large baulks of timber. Does this not remind you of a crucifixion scene with the erection of the crosses in a religious painting? Is this symbolic of man’s struggle?

The right-hand panel in contrast is populated by the women who are nursing their babies. They look very concerned and seem not to be happy with their lot in life. Again, thinking of religious connotations does this depiction remind you of religious depictions of the Virgin and Child ?

In between these two panels is the centre panel which is all about childhood and youth. In the front there is a group of boys playing cards while we observe a parade of youngsters coming out of school or young men leaving their workshops or worksites. Some of the young girls are carrying food whilst others are eating theirs. Look closely at the centre background of this centre panel and you will catch a glimpse of a funeral procession moving away and it is a reminder of the inevitability of death. The movement of the cortege is away from us which is in direct contrast to all the workers and school children that move towards the viewer.

Another of Léon Frédéric’s famed Symbolism paintings is entitled Aurora often referred to as ‘L’Aube arrachant les Ténèbres (Dawn tearing away the Darkness) which he completed in the early 1890’s. It is a painting, part Symbolism and part Neo-Classicism. Aurora is the Greek goddess of dawn and she was the sister of the sun-god Helios. Her normal depiction features her scattering flowers from her four-horse chariot but in this depiction by Frédéric we see her almost naked, her body partly covered with a wind-blown diaphanous black veil which covers half her face. She is surrounded by a series of moons, suns and an aureole of stars. We see her materialising from banks of clouds and sunbeams, she stands before us, separating the morning from the night. She is the true goddess of dawn. Frédéric has heightened the atmosphere of his depiction by using lighter, silvery-blue colours to paint a cosmic, supernatural motif. There is no doubt the depiction is both mesmerising and challenging.

Le Ruisseau (The Torrent) by Léon Frédéric

Around the same time that Frédéric completed Aurora he also finished what many consider to be his greatest Symbolist work, the giant triptych entitled Le Ruisseau (The Stream), which he dedicated to Beethoven. It was a controversial painting full of naked children and swans. Observers of the work were either impressed or upset by what they saw. Although painted in a photorealist style the meaning of the work was incomprehensible.

Centre panel (detail) of Le ruisseau (The torrent) by Léon Frédéric

Of all Léon Frédéric’s paintings my favourite is his 1882 triptych entitled The Holy Trinity. The frames of the three paintings are not joined together but the three are looked upon as companion pieces. As I said in the previous blog, in around 1882. Frédéric went to live in the small southern Belgium village of Nafraiture, which was close to the French border and over the next forty years he was to visit the village on numerous occasions and paint portraits of the inhabitants as well as landscapes of the outlying areas.

Holy Trinity Triptych by Léon Frédéric (1882)

Frédéric gave his Holy Family triptych, which he completed in 1882, to the village. One would have thought that the inhabitants of the village would be delighted to have his three paintings displayed in the charming little village church but that was not the case. The paintings were placed out of sight in the church rectory. The reason for the parishoners’ reluctance to openly exhibit the works of art was that the faces depicted in the paintings were that of some of the local people, who were less than pleased with their depictions. However Cardinal Mercier, an admirer of the works of Frédéric, had them removed from the rectory and placed on the interior walls of the church itself. They are now the centrepieces of the church of Nafraiture and are a testament to the artist Léon Frédéric’s love for the village.

The left-hand panel of The Holy Trinity triptych – God the Father

The painting on the left of the trio depicts the omnipotence of God the Father.

The centre panel of the Holy Trinity – Jesus Christ, God the Son

The painting which is positioned in the middle of the triptych is a depiction of God the Son, Jesus Christ. His face is depicted on a white shroud held aloft by two angel-like figures as they walk through a field of flowers. In the background we can see a field being ploughed and to the right we see a procession of people walking along a path, following the angels. Look at the bottom foreground on the right and you will see a pair of snakes

The depiction of Jesus Christ’s face is an amazing work of art which has been brought back to life after seven moths of restoration. It is a face covered in blood from the crown of thorns. The blood runs down the white cloth below the face. The forehead of Christ is wrinkled with pain and his eyes have taken on a blank look due to his intense suffering. It is such a heart-rending depiction.

The final painting which is usually positioned on the right of the trio depicts the Holy Spirit.

In September 2017 the three works were taken down from the walls of the church so that they could be restored. The restoration took seven months to complete. It was a difficult job with the frames having been attacked by vermin and had to be repaired and the canvases re-stretched.

The restorer and the church curator explains what else had to be achieved:

“…We started with a clean-up, and we realized at that point the condition of the varnish, which is not homogeneous. The details and the touch of the artist were no longer so noticeable, because of the yellowing. It was due to the restoration varnish laid about fifty years ago, not to the painting. There were no chemicals used during our restoration…”

The clarity of the newly restored paintings is quite amazing. Look at the face of the Holy Spirit. Look at the astounding way the artist has depicted the tears. After the restoration, you can see much better the tears that flow from the eyes. The colours are lighter, brighter.

The triptych of the Holy Trinity has been exhibited all over the world, but it has always returned home to the village church at Nafraiture.

Léon Frédéric died in the Belgian town of Schaarbeek on January 27th 1940 aged 83.

Léon Frédéric. Part 1. The Naturalist painter

My chosen subject today is the life and works of a nineteenth century Belgian artist. He has been designated as a Symbolist painter and yet when I look at his work only some of it seems to fall into that category. Other of his paintings tend towards realism. So, in this first of two blogs about the artist, I am going to concentrate on his woks of Realism.

The artist I am looking at today is Léon-Henri-Marie Frédéric. He was one of the most prominent representatives of the Belgian symbolist school. He was born in the Brussels’ municipality of Uccle, on August 26th, 1856. His parents were Eugène Frédéric, a wealthy jeweller, and Felicie Dufour. Léon was brought up in a crowded Roman Catholic household and at the age of seven, his parents sent him to the Institute of Joséphites in Melle, a Jesuit boarding school. In 1871, at the age of fifteen, he began working as an apprentice to the painter, decorator Charles Albert, and at the same time, attended the evening classes of the Brussels Academy of Art, where he became a pupil of Jules Vankeirsblick and Ernest Slingeneyer. He also worked in the studio of Jean Portaels, the Neo-Classicist painter who at the start of 1878 became the director of the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles. In 1875, Léon joined other young painters and they rented a studio and set up a collective, pooling their money so as to employ living models.

The Funeral Meal by Léon Frédéric (1886)

One of the greatest of prizes on offer to young aspiring artists was to win the Prix de Rome. The original Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students and was created in 1663 in France under the reign of Louis XIV. The prize, organised by Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, was open to their students. The award winner would win a stay at the Palazzo Mancini in Rome at the expense of the King of France. The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp followed suit in 1832 and organised the the Belgian Prix de Rome with a similar prize being given to the winner. Léon entered the competition on three occasions but without any success. He was devastated, so much so, that his father financed a two year-long study trip for his son in 1876. Léon travelled to Italy in the company of Juliaan Dillens, who had won the Prix de Rome for sculpture the previous year. Léon travelled extensively through Italy visiting Naples, Rome, Florence and Venice. He visited museums and observed the work of the great Italian Masters. His favourite artists were said to have been Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio. He was also influenced by the Italian primitives and that of the English Pre-Raphaelites, and Burne-Jones in particular. As a painter, Léon said pain ting gave him an understanding of the overpowering beauty and harmony of nature with mankind. This sense of accord was balanced by his own artistic vision which expressed a truthfulness to nature.

On his return to Belgium in 1878, Léon joins the Brussels-based artist group known as L’Essor. The group was created in 1876, and was formed by a group of art students who had once studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, although in 1879 this artists group severed all links it had with the Academy. The motto of the group was “a unique art, one life“, and concentrated on the relationship which they believed should unite the Art to Life. The founders of the group wanted their art to be a pictorial condemnation of the bourgeois and conservative Literary and Artistic Circles of Brussels.

In this first blog about Frédéric I am going to concentrate on his artwork which is looked upon as Naturalism and Realism. In the early days, Léon Frédéric mainly painted realistic scenes of the lives of the less well-off people such as labourers, the homeless and farm workers. He empathised with their grief and depravation but at the same time he was also very inspired by their never-ending and fervent religious beliefs of the old people who lived in these countryside areas.

Les garçons (The little boys) by Léon Frédéric

He completed a set of five group portraits entitled Les Âges du paysan (The Age of the Peasant) which depict the five different stages in the life of rural peasants. Besides the aging process very little changes with their poor attire and their seemingly acceptance of what life has offered them.

Les fillettes (the young girls) by Léon Frédéric

Les promis (The betrothed) by Léon Frédéric

Les époux (The married couples) by Léon Frédéric

Les vieillards (The elderly) by Léon Frédéric

Around this time Léon was inspired by the art of the French Naturalism painter Jules Bastien Lepage and Léon’s 1882 triptych painting Les marchands de craie (The Chalk Merchants) was inspired by the French painter.

Chalk Sellers by Léon Frédéric (Morning, Noon and Evening) (1882-83),

The three paintings incorporate three distinct times in the day of a family of workers. The triptych was hailed as a veritable masterpiece of Realism / Naturalism and, like some of Bastien-Lepage’s work, is particularly sensitive to the plight of the poor. It was exhibited to great acclaim at the Brussels’s Salon in 1882.

The left-hand panel depicts a poor family of chalk sellers setting out for work. In the background is their small village. It is a harrowing depiction. The mother is wrapped up against the cold and yet her reddened hands are bare. Her face is half hidden by her headscarf but we still meet her penetrating stare, an almost accusing glower. On her back is a heavy basket of chalk which they hope to sell. Behind her is her husband. He has a red beard and wears a wide-brimmed, floppy hat. His eyes look tired and unable to focus. His mouth is partly open as if he is struggling to breathe. He is struggling with life both physically and mentally. He looks resigned to his fate. He carries a basket on his back which contains a very young blonde-haired child. In one hand he holds a wicker basket containing their food. His other hand clasps the hand of his dark-eyed, rosy-cheeked son, a bare-footed child, whose small dirty hand grasps a piece of bread which he is eating. They all look tired and yet the day’s work has yet to begin.

The middle panel depicts the family having a modest noontime meal as they sit in some barren fields with a small town in the background. The family from the previous picture have been joined by a woman nursing her baby and her child sitting besides her. Before them is a pot of boiled potatoes which they are eating with their bread. The two women and the children are all bare-footed. The man has taken off his hat and we see he is bald. The women in the centre once again fixes us with a questioning glower, almost as if she is demanding to know why we should be looking at them

In the right hand panel we see the family returning home after a day’s work. They all have their back to us. Their village is on the left and way in the background a city looms. The wooden basket and the wicker one they carry have been lightened of food and chalk but still it is a wearying trek back to their village. The man staggers with the weight of the young sleeping child he cradles in his arms. The mother looks down at her other child, who walks besides her, hand in hand, to see if he is alright. This was just one of Frédéric’s paintings which shows that he was aware of social inequality in Belgian society.

Two Walloon Farm Children by Léon Frédéric (1888),

Another of Frédéric’s Naturalist paintings which was influenced by Bastien-Lepage was his beautiful 1888 portrayal of two children, entitled Two Walloon Farm Children. Bastien-Lepage, who was renowned in France as the leader of the evolving Naturalist school, had died after a long illness in 1884, aged just 36 and Frédéric took over the Naturalist mantle. The painting is both exquisite and yet troubling. It is a portrait of child poverty. The two sit on chairs, finger tips touching, wearing white-collared grey smocks. The plain clothes seem clean and but for their dull simplicity, do not insinuate poverty. Their hands and fingernails are dirty suggesting a peasant life which is further alluded to by their rosy cheeks brought about by their outdoor life. The two girls who look out at us seem to be displeased with our attention to their life. It is one of the most moving images of the deprivation which went hand in hand with rural life. Frédéric’s naturalist style of painting brings with it a vision of a harsh, grim lifestyle with all the hardships that poverty brings to the table. It was not the fault of the people but the unstoppable march of industrial modernity. If one look at all his paintings featuring the harsh life suffered by the peasants one does not detect or sense rebellion, just a sense of dejection and resignation and that life for them would carry on through their faith in God.

The Legend of Saint Francis by Léon Frédéric (1882)

During Frédéric’s travels around Italy in 1878 it is thought that he may have visited the Umbrian town of Assisi and seen Giotto’s famed cycle of twenty-eight frescoes on the lower part of the walls of the nave and entrance in the town’s upper church of St. Francis at Assisi. In 1882 Frédéric painted a triptych depicting St. Francis, simply entitled The Legend of Saint Francis. In the left-hand panel we see the saint walking down a country path and the centre panel depicts him feeding the hens. The right-hand panel is more interesting as it recounts the tale of the St Anthony as written in the 14th century book, Fioretti di San Francesco (The Little Flowers of St. Francis) a fifty-three chapter book on the life of the Saint, one of which talks about the Wolf of Gubbio, which according to the book terrorized the Umbrian city of Gubbio until it was tamed by St. Francis of Assisi acting on behalf of God.

In 1883, Léon Frédéric left Brussles and went to live in Nafraiture, a small rural village in the Ardennes region of southern Belgium, close to the French border, where he lived for several years. Many of Frédéric’s works after his re-location depict poor people and peasants and the artist’s work focused on the harsh reality of peasant life. One of his paintings, thought to have been completed around 1886, focuses on grief and hardship and were thought to have been completed during his time at Nafraiture. The painting was entitled Burial of a Farmer. Sad burial scenes of country folk were popular ever since Courbet’s 1850 large-scale masterpiece, Burial at Ornans, which had gained Courbet great success at the 1850 Salon. Frédéric’s painting differs in that it depicts a procession of mourners at a village funeral in harsh wintry conditions somewhere in the Ardennes. At the head of the procession is the clergyman with the bible tightly grasped in his hand. Next to him are the close family mourners – the wife, rubbing tears from her eyes, her young son almost hidden behind the black clothes of his grandmother. Behind them are other family members, friends, and a smattering of local people. The black clothes of the mourners against the snow almost makes this a monochromatic depiction but there are just the odd splashes of colour, albeit muted, in the clothes of the three children at the right of the painting. Without doubt it is a very moving scene.

In my next blog about Léon Frédéric I will look at his work which compartmentalises him as a Symbolist painter.

Walter Dendy Sadler

It is difficult to categorise today’s featured artist. It is difficult to compartmentalise his style of paintings. He is a genre painter. He is a satirical painter. He is a humourist painter. I suppose the closest one comes to liken him with a famous artist is that his paintings have a soupçon of the 18th century works of William Hogarth. Let me introduce you to the 19th century English painter Walter Dendy Sadler.

For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow and So Say all of Us by Walter Dendy Sadler

Walter Dendy Sadler was born on May 12th, 1854 in the Surrey market town of Dorking, which lies some twenty miles south of London. He was the son of a solicitor and attended school in Horsham. During his school days he developed a love of sketching. Walter decided that in the future he wanted to follow an artistic path and become a professional painter and so he took some local art tuition. In 1870 at the age of sixteen he left Horsham and enrolled at the prestigious Heatherly School of Fine Arts in London. In 1871 he went to Germany and received private tuition from Wilhelm Simmler and studied under the English genre painter, James Moulton Burfield

He was barely eighteen years of age when he first exhibited his work at the Dudley Gallery in 1872 and a year later his work was exhibited at the Royal Academy. He continued showing at the R.A. from 1873 into the 1890’s. Although young, Sadler often portrayed elderly people in his early submissions to the Royal Academy, such as The Old Squire and The Young Squire (RA exhibition 1887), Old and Crusted (RA exhibition 1888), and The Young and the Old (RA exhibition 1898). In Daniel B. Shepp’s 1905 survey Library of History and Art Dendy was praised by critics for his “close sympathy with human life in its many phases, and a keen appreciation of its spirit, whether humorous or pathetic”.

Sadler’s works of art were extremely popular in both Europe and America. In the magazine Good Housekeeping in 1912 a profile of the artist claimed that:

“…Few American homes contain no reproduction of Dendy Sadler’s studies of pre-Victorian middle-class life”

Prints of his work sold in the millions in the United States, with original canvases fetching prices in the thousands of dollars. In the same magazine Sadler explained why he liked to depict elderly people in his works. He wrote:

“…I have been asked why so often I choose old people to smile and frown and think in my compositions. To me, the dignity of old age is most appealing. To me, the pathetic beauty of the autumn of our years is more stirring than the senseless impatience of youth and the heat of our amorous summers…”

The Skipper’s Birthday by Walter Dendy Sadler

The subject of his paintings were contemporary people shown in domestic and daily life pursuits. The depictions of the people would often have comical expressions and sometimes pointing out their greed, foolishness etc. The figures depicted in his paintings were usually set in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries, often with sentimental, romantic, and humorous themes. Sadler was known for his elaborate staging of his paintings.

The Young and the Old by Walter Dendy Sadler

Before painting a scene, he would create elaborate settings in which local villagers would often pose as models. Indeed, as he often used the same props and models, these can sometimes be seen repeated in successive paintings in different guises. The home, the monastery, the inn, the lawyer’s office, the garden, and the golf course all provide subjects for his wit and clever social scrutiny. All would be dealt a dose of his wit and his clever observation.

There’s Joy in Remembrance (Portrait of a Lady at Her Desk) by Walter Dendy Sadler

Sadler was lauded for his works of art and he achieved greater popularity with the general public. The paintings reminded people of bygone days of charm and culture and are hailed as being as fresh today as the day he painted them. People who liked the delicate feeling expressed in Sadler’s works flocked to own one of his works or a print of them. It was not just the sentimentality of these “old-time” paintings that appealed to thousands of buyers but it was also his artistic talent.

End of the Skein by Walter Dendy Sadler (1896)

His submission to the Royal Academy jurists for their 1896 exhibition was a painting entitled End of the Skein. The setting is a well-appointed sitting room. To the left is an elderly gentleman seated in a padded mahogany chair draped with a paisley Kashmir shawl and across from him we see an elderly lady seated in a striped armchair, whom we perceive to be his wife. Both sit before a warming fire. The couple are examples of “good old age” living, both independent and leading a productive life. They sit working together to make a skein of red yarn into a ball, ready for knitting. It is a sign of loving co-operation between the couple. So, what do we deduce from the portrayal of the two figures? What do you think? I would suggest they are of upper-middle or upper-class status, and their financial status that goes with this class of person would have some relevance on their life expectancy, their comfortable living, and they would probably command great respect from their family. Not just respect but loving care. This refined couple had a greater life expectancy than most as their secured economic status would have allowed for a healthier diet, a peaceful and contented lifestyle, and higher standard of living and with this came a higher life expectancy. The elaborate setting for the painting with its abundance of ornaments and painting in some ways takes us away from the couple and has us carefully scanning the room itself. However, they are pointers to the wealth of the couple, who seemed to be unburdened by the various financial pressures and consequences of poverty. The mantel above the fireplace is decorated with a naval scene hanging in an ornate frame behind a fine-looking clock, on either side of which we see a couple of matching blue and white Chinese jars.

Many of Sadler’s humorous paintings featured monks, and monastic life. In his 1880 painting, Thursday, which is also known as ‘Tomorrow will be Friday‘, he depicts a group of Franciscan monks fishing. These friars were forbidden to eat meat on Fridays, as a reminder that Friday was the day when Christ was crucified. Sadler wrote about the depiction:

“…The background was made up from studies I had painted in Germany, with the help of some foreground studies made in the previous summer at Hurley on the Thames…”

This painting can be found at Tate Britain. It was one of three paintings that commenced Sir Henry Tate’s collection.

A pendant to this picture, painted two years later in 1882 and entitled Friday hangs in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. This work shows the abbot and the monks at dinner on Friday enjoying their meal of fish which had been caught the previous day and was in lieu of the prohibited meat. Each side of the jovial looking abbot are monks from another monastery, hence the different coloured habits. The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy show in 1882 but received scant attention, probably due to being placed high up on a wall. This fact was commented on by a writer in the Art Journal who stated:

“…A good picture, which would have done much to make its author had it received better treatment from the hangers…Several of the minor details, such as the excessively modern appearance of the table and its furniture, might be criticized; but on the whole the picture is to be praised for its genuine humour, and for the careful solidity of its execution…”

Sadler talked about his painting, Friday saying:

“I can recall no reason why I tried to paint monks, but I do remember that I never had a real monk as a model. I have studied them on the Continent, also at a small monastery in Crawley, Sussex…… The figures to the right and left of the abbot are monks of the order of St. Francis, their habits are brown; the other monks are of the order of St. Dominic, and their habits are black and white…”

A Good Bowl of Punch by Walter Dendy Sadler (1886)

Once again older men featured in Sadler’s 1886 painting A Good Bowl of Punch. Before us, we see three cheerful gentlemen seated around a table, one is peeling an orange into a bowl of rum, whilst the other two, who are holding their long-handled pipes, watch on intently. The setting is a bright panelled interior with its English type carvings.

The Village Postman by Walter Dendy Sadler

I particularly like his painting entitled The Village Postman. Sadler painted during the reign of Queen Victoria and during this period, nostalgic and romantic scenes were favoured by the buying public. Look at the work and make up your mind what is going on. He has been doing his round on a horse. This picture is part of a Victorian fashion for nostalgic and romantic scenes showing life a hundred years before. The postman appears to have come by horse as he has a riding whip tucked under his left arm. He is sorting out the mail in front of the girl. She clasps her hands nervously. Could it be that she is expecting a letter from her lover?

In the Camp of the Amalekites by Walter Dendy Sadler

One of Sadler’s paintings has a strange title and one I am at a loss to understand. Any ideas ???

The title is In the Camp of the Amalekites. In my search to understand the relevance of the title. The Encyclopædia Britannica states:

“…Amalekite, member of an ancient nomadic tribe, or collection of tribes, described in the Old Testament as relentless enemies of Israel, even though they were closely related to Ephraim, one of the 12 tribes of Israel. The district over which they ranged was south of Judah and probably extended into northern Arabia. The Amalekites harassed the Hebrews during their Exodus from Egypt and attacked them at Rephidim near Mount Sinai, where they were defeated by Joshua. They were among the nomadic raiders defeated by Gideon and were condemned to annihilation by Samuel. Their final defeat occurred in the time of Hezekiah…”

But what have the Amalekites to do with Sadler’s painting which features a Parliamentarian soldier (a Roundhead) who is being held captive by a group of Royalists. Roundheads were the supporters of the Parliament of England during the English Civil War which lasted from 1642 to 1651. The Roundheads, also known as Parliamentarians, fought against King Charles I of England and his supporters, known as the Cavaliers or Royalists, who claimed rule by absolute monarchy and the principle of the ‘divine right of kings’. The setting is an interior with wood-timbered walls and floor. On the left we see a Roundhead prisoner bound to a chair. Opposite him are a row of Royalist soldiers seated along a bench. The Royalists are all wearing their uniform of a white shirt with red breeches. Some are wearing red waistcoats and hats. They have just eaten a meal as on the table on the far right behind the bench bears the remains of the meal.

Walter Dendy Sadler died in the small Cambridgeshire village of Hemingford Grey on November 13th 1923, aged 69. He had moved to the village in 1897 and lived at River House .